This invention relates to improvements in the apparatus for feeding assembly components from a bulk supply zone into a pick-up zone in which component can be picked up for transfer to another machine, such as a robotic assembly machine. The feeder of the present invention is useful for many varieties of machines. Conventional feeders usually are a part of the assembly machine for which they are designed, and cannot ordinarily be used in another environment. Conventional feeders usually have been activated by some operation of the robotic assembly machine. Convention feeders have generally advanced a component from the bulk to the pick-up position by gravity or gravity assisted by a belt, or vibration or a compressed gas.
In convention feeders, the component at the pick-up position has oftentimes been subjected to the pressure of a gravitationally flowing stream of components, thus making it more difficult for the robotic assembly machine to pick up the component by vacuum. Hence some feeder have included additional mechanisms for adequately individualizing a component for transfer to a pickup zone, thereby increasing the propensities for jamming and other malfunctions. Most feeders have been purely mechanical feeders lacking adequate communication systems for alerting the operator and/or the robotic assembly machine concerning the status of the feeding mechanism. Heretofore the stream of flowing components from the bottom of a hopper has been unsatisfactorily slow, thus limiting the practical speed at which the robotic assembly machine could function.